A confirmed breakdown in the alliance between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Los Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel has opened a new chapter of territorial conflict across Baja California. State security officials say criminal cells are realigning in Tijuana, Mexicali, Ensenada, Tecate, and San Quintín, fighting over trafficking routes into the United States. The 2026 Mexico Peace Index estimates that 55 percent of the roughly 30,000 homicides tied to the CJNG vs. Sinaloa war over the past decade occurred in Baja California alone.
The cartel war in Baja California is not new. But the current fracture represents a distinct escalation because it dissolves what had been, until recently, a cooperative arrangement between two of Mexico’s most powerful criminal organizations.
How the CJNG and Los Chapitos Alliance Formed and Fell Apart
The roots of the current crisis trace back to July 25, 2024, when Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, was surrendered to U.S. authorities. His removal from the cartel’s leadership triggered an internal war between two rival factions: Los Chapitos (the sons of imprisoned kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán) and La Mayiza (the loyalists of Zambada’s wing).
That internal split created a temporary, pragmatic alliance. By 2025, Baja California’s Secretary of Public Security, Laureano Carrillo Rodríguez, confirmed that state intelligence had detected CJNG operatives working alongside Los Chapitos cells in Tecate and Tijuana. Their shared enemy was La Mayiza and its allied groups, who also controlled territory in the state.
A key confirmation came on January 23, 2026, at Cerro Cuchumá near Tecate, where security forces identified CJNG members operating directly alongside Los Chapitos fighters. In Tecate specifically, intelligence reports showed that members who had been loyal to the Zambada faction defected to join the CJNG and Los Chapitos coalition.
Then the alliance broke. Carrillo Rodríguez stated that the reported death of CJNG founder Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” triggered new power struggles inside the CJNG itself. With leadership undefined in both major cartels simultaneously, the cooperative arrangement collapsed. Criminal cells are now realigning across the northern border, and the state security secretary said alliances continue to shift in real time.
Baja Has Seen This Pattern Before, With Deadly Results
Baja California has lived through cartel realignments before, and each one brought a spike in violence. Between 2008 and 2012, the Sinaloa Cartel’s campaign to wrest Tijuana from the Arellano Félix organization (also called the Tijuana Cartel) pushed the city’s annual homicide count above 800 in 2008 and past 1,000 in 2009. That conflict spilled into Ensenada and Tecate as well, with bodies left on highways and shootouts erupting in commercial districts.
A second major spike hit between 2017 and 2019. After the Sinaloa Cartel consolidated Tijuana, internal disputes over retail drug territory drove homicides in the city above 2,500 in 2018, making it one of the deadliest cities in the world that year. Street-level dealers, not kingpins, were doing most of the killing, and the violence touched neighborhoods that had previously been considered safe.
The current fracture carries echoes of both periods. Multiple factions are competing simultaneously, leadership is unstable on all sides, and the geography of the conflict spans the entire state rather than concentrating in one city.
Trafficking Corridors and High Traffic Zones Across the State
The municipalities named by state authorities map directly onto the corridors that residents and visitors use daily. Tijuana and its surrounding colonias sit along the routes to the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa border crossings, the two busiest land ports of entry in the Western Hemisphere. Tens of thousands of people cross northbound each day through these points.
Tecate, where the January 2026 Cerro Cuchumá incident occurred, serves as a quieter alternative border crossing popular with residents of wine country and the eastern Tijuana suburbs. Ensenada and San Quintín lie along the Transpeninsular Highway (Highway 1) and the Tijuana to Ensenada toll road (Highway 1D), the primary routes for visitors heading to the wine region, surf towns, and coastal communities south of Rosarito.
Mexicali, the state capital, sits at the eastern end of the border with crossings into Calexico, California. Authorities identified criminal operatives moving through Mexicali as factions compete over cocaine and methamphetamine smuggling routes.
Past alliance breakdowns in these areas produced roadblocks (known locally as “narcobloqueos”), vehicle thefts for use as barricades, and shootouts that closed highways for hours. During the 2008 to 2012 conflict, toll road closures between Tijuana and Ensenada became frequent enough that the U.S. consulate issued specific warnings about that corridor.
Carrillo Rodríguez said the state is actively monitoring cell movements but acknowledged that alliances remain in flux. The next concrete marker will be whether the homicide rate in Tijuana, which had trended downward from its 2018 peak, reverses course in the coming months. El Financiero first reported the alliance breakdown on May 28, 2026.